Statement of J. Brett Blanton

Architect of the Capitol 

Architect of the Capitol Fiscal Year 2022 Appropriations

Statement before the Subcommittee on Legislative Branch, 

Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate

April 21, 2021
Statement before the Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch,

Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate

Fiscal Year 2022 Appropriations - 1

Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Braun and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the 

opportunity to present the Architect of the Capitol's (AOC) Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 budget

request of $865 million. 

It has been a whirlwind year since I began my tenure as the 12th Architect of the Capitol. In that 

time, I have been amazed by the level of commitment and professionalism displayed by our staff. 

We have been in pandemic operations for nearly a year, we supported four lying in state or honor 

ceremonies, we survived a building breach on January 6 and we successfully prepared and 

supported the presidential inauguration. 

As a part of the agency’s FY 2021 budget request, I committed to conducting a top-down 

assessment of the agency to identify the most urgent needs and address the critical issues. The 

agency’s FY 2022 budget request is the result of that review and serves as the beginning of the 

transformation of the AOC into a world-class service agency. Additionally, this budget request 

serves as the foundation for the future of the Capitol campus.

This request introduces several new initiatives that will address many of the most critical needs 

of the AOC and the Capitol community, including committing ourselves to long-term planning

and developing strategies that will prepare the campus for the next century and begin to address 

the agency’s $1.8 billion backlog in strategic and systematic manner. 

One of these strategies is the development of an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system to 

aid decision making regarding operating, maintaining and renewing facilities and infrastructure 

assets such as buildings, plants, machinery, vehicles and construction equipment in a manner that 

achieves industry standards and best business practices. Coupled with a commitment to better 

ensure our request is aligned with expected service levels, we will use EAM to proactively 

administer maintenance-based strategies and reduce the deferred maintenance backlog, which 

includes more than $220 million in work in the Senate buildings under our care. In addition, 

EAM will allow us to mitigate obsolescence, restore reliability, reduce long-term costs and 

provide a system to forecast resource needs requirements to ensure assets are secured, 

maintained and meet industry standards for viability. Numerous studies have shown that the ISO 

55000 certified EAM system we will implement has a return on investment of approximately 

five years.

This budget also reinforces my commitment to the AOC's employees by developing a human 

capital strategy that will bolster our efforts to acquire, develop, train and retain a talented, diverse 

and highly skilled workforce that is prepared for the future. We aim to transform the AOC's 

human capital landscape by ensuring workforce readiness, closing skills gaps and maximizing 

employees' talents, skill sets and competencies. 

In addition, we will strengthen access to skills training by establishing a new AOC University, 

which will ensure people have the skills to perform their jobs well and can improve their skills to 

better position themselves for advancement. It will also transform the organization and culture of 

the AOC by investing in employee outreach and training programs that focus on skill-building 
Statement before the Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch,

Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate

Fiscal Year 2022 Appropriations - 2

activities designed to improve employee and stakeholder experiences, teach conflict resolution

skills and improve teamwork and customer service.

As I have said since my first day with the agency, the overall success of the AOC begins with 

our staff. The ability of our central services to support our front-line operations is critical to the 

organization’s success. Included in this budget request is an aggressive plan to on-board needed

staff who are essential toward supporting the needs and services of Congress. 

The safety of members and staff on the Capitol campus is my highest priority. As such, code 

compliance, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), is another area where we are 

seeking transformative change. Under the proposed Building Official Program, dedicated experts 

will ensure stakeholders follow the same set of established building codes and request approval 

of their work through a permit process. The agency will track all construction and infrastructure 

work in a centralized data, management and oversight system. This proposal allows for 

independent verification that infrastructure and construction work performed at AOC-managed 

facilities and grounds consistently meets established building codes and enterprise facility 

standards. This is similar to the model used by many at state and local governments and will

ensure safe and code-compliant work on the Capitol campus. 

Additional staffing is also required to meet the emerging requirements to ensure the cleanliness 

of the Capitol campus as we transition to a new normal after the COVID threat. This budget 

request introduces the concept of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for janitorial services. These 

SLAs transparently outline specific levels of cleanliness and the associated cost for these 

services. In future budgets, we will expand these SLAs to all products and services the AOC 

delivers so there are measurable standards of service on the Capitol campus. 

Regarding our continued COVID-19 response, our commitment toward ensuring that adequate 

measures are taken to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 across the Capitol campus has not been 

met with the required financial support. Other than our initial installment of funding, which is 

fully obligated, the AOC has been forced to use our critical infrastructure and security project 

funding to support Congress at a service level required for enhanced cleaning and acquire 

necessary personal protective equipment (PPE). 

Maintaining vigilant and strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols, the AOC has successfully 

continued facility operations and delivered quality projects to Congress and our legislative and 

judicial branch partners. Several ongoing projects remain on-schedule, including the multi-year, 

multi-phase exterior stone restoration projects at the U.S. Capitol and Russell Senate Office 

Building. Also, as of the end of April, we have completed over 70% of the Senate moves, with 

16 of the 22 offices selected in the 117th Congress moved into their renovated spaces. This effort 

represents the renovation of over 61,000 square feet of office space in the Russell, Dirksen and 

Hart Senate Office Buildings.

With the committee’s encouragement, we launched the Urban Agriculture Resilience Program 

last spring to support food-growing programs at public gardens affected by COVID-19 and to 
Statement before the Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch,

Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate

Fiscal Year 2022 Appropriations - 3

address emerging food insecurities due to the global pandemic. We assisted 19 states and 

Washington, D.C. in the growing and distribution of produce to communities with food access 

challenges. This model was a success, and now with lessons learned and an experienced team in 

partnership agreements on board at the U.S. Botanic Garden, we believe this community support 

can be successfully expanded to encourage more COVID gardens. 

In addition to this critical work, I am proud to announce that the AOC received its 16th consecutive 

unmodified clean audit opinion of its financial statement. We also received our ninth consecutive 

Certificate of Excellence in Accountability Reporting award from the Association of Government 

Accountants. These recognitions are evidence of our excellence in financial management and 

provide transparency of our stewardship of the public's funds.

The agency’s FY 2022 capital budget request seeks to continue this progress by addressing over 

$78 million in deferred maintenance needs across campus to begin our process of reducing the 

backlog. It also invests almost $90 million in projects that renew or improve aging infrastructure

such as fire alarms, campus intrusion, environmental systems and electrical distribution.

The AOC's risk-based project prioritization process identified $171.5 million for capital projects.

Of this, $92.7 million, or 54 percent, is for projects that did not receive funding in FY 2021. This 

includes the project to address identified fire and life safety deficiencies stemming from the lack 

of a building-wide sprinkler system to bring the U.S. Capitol into code compliance. If not 

funded, the building remains at increased risk of flame spread in the event of a fire. In addition, 

the lack of full sprinkler protection leaves the U.S. Capitol building reliant on the fire department 

to suppress all but the smallest fires, jeopardizing life safety as well as historic assets and 

features.

The agency is also requesting funding for critical utility distribution projects at the Capitol Power 

Plant and offsite facilities. Funding is required for Phase 5 of the Refrigeration Plant 

Revitalization program, which will remove 40-year-old piping and includes various replacements 

and additions to bring the older West Refrigeration Plant equipment up to date. Earlier this year, 

chilled water piping broke and spilled over 200,000 gallons of water a day, impacting servers 

and congressional recording studio spaces. Phase 5 of the Refrigeration Plant Revitalization is 

imperative to prevent a complete shutdown of various congressional operations if another pipe 

breaks. Off-campus, we need to replace aging units with dual-use, energy-efficient units within 

the data centers to reduce the risk of interruption to daily operations, reduce energy consumption 

and reduce our carbon footprint.

As I mentioned earlier, code compliance is an important element in this request. We are seeking 

to address critical upgrades to life safety systems across campus. Fire alarm and sprinkler system 

upgrades at the U.S. Capitol, U.S. Botanic Garden and the James Madison Memorial Building 

will address code deficiencies, reduce the risk of system failure and improve facility safety for 

building occupants. 
Statement before the Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch,

Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate

Fiscal Year 2022 Appropriations - 4

I would also like to mention the continued need to address a growing backlog of work at the 

aging Library of Congress facilities. Stained-glass window and roof repairs at the Thomas 

Jefferson Building are long overdue, and the failure to properly address water infiltration 

stemming from the James Madison Memorial Building’s sixth floor terrace poses a threat to the 

historical collections housed in this facility. 

Finally, as we continue to assess the Capitol's future facility needs in the aftermath of the 

January sixth breach, I would also like to take a moment to thank the subcommittee for your 

support of a campus-wide facility assessment. This assessment will identify necessary security 

upgrades to the facilities and infrastructure on Capitol Hill through coordination and 

collaboration with campus partners. It will evaluate options, and the engineering requirements 

necessary to accomplish those options, to provide the committee with budget-level details 

needed to make decisions on potential project and resource needs. This assessment is underway 

and I expect to have initial information to you in the coming weeks.

During my selection and confirmation process, I promised to transform the AOC. This budget 

request is the first step in that transformation. Additionally, last year, I promised to emphasize 

deferred maintenance and emergent needs required for our facilities. I am confident that this 

request, coupled with the changes we are actively incorporating throughout the agency,

represents a major step forward and the beginning of the future for the AOC. 

I appreciate your thoughtful consideration of our FY 2022 budget request. 

Thank you for your time. I’m happy to answer your questions.